Dublin

Green, lively and fashionable

Set on the banks of the River Liffey, Dublin is a splendidly monumentalcity with a cosmopolitan feel and an internationally renowned nightlife.
A shore excursion on your MSC Northern Europe cruise can be the opportunity to discover Dublin’s elegance and essentially Georgianarchitecture, hailing from when the Anglo-Irish gentry invested their income in new townhouses.

Dublin’s fashionable Southside is home to the city’s trendy bars, restaurants and shops – especially in the cobbled alleys of Temple Bar leading down to the River Liffey – and most of its historic monuments, centred on Trinity College, Grafton Street and St Stephen’s Green. But the Northside, with its long-standing working-class neighbourhoods and inner-city communities, is the real heart of the city.

Across the bridges from Temple Bar are the shopping districts around O’Connell Street, where you’ll find a flavour of the old Dublin. Here, you’ll also come across a fair amount of graceful residential streets and squares, with plenty of interest in the museums and cultural hotspots around the elegant Parnell Square.

The Vikings sited their assembly and burial ground near what is now College Green, a three-sided square where Trinity College is the most famous landmark. Founded in 1592, Trinity College played a major role in the development of a Protestant Anglo-Irish tradition: right up to 1966, Catholics had to obtain a special dispensation to study here, though now they make up the majority of the students.

The stern grey and mellow red-brick buildings are ranged around cobbled quadrangles in a larger version of the quads at Oxford and Cambridge. The Old Library owns numerous Irish manuscripts; pride of place goes to the illustrated ninth-century Book of Kells, which contains the four Gospels written in Latin on vellum, the script adorned with patterns and fantastic animals intertwined with the text’s capital letters.

Must see places in Dublin

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Ireland

A cruise to Ireland will fulfill all your romantic preconceptions. An uncommon geological richness and the warming effect of the Atlantic produce an astonishing diversity of terrain on this small island, which is splashed throughout with lakes and primeval bogland.

In the east, the crumpled granite of the Wicklow Hills sits in utter contrast to the horse-grazing plain of the Curragh just a few kilometres away, and in Connemara on the west coast, you can walk from beach to mountain to fen, from seaweed-strewn inlet to lily-covered lough, in a matter of hours.
Dublin is the Republic’s main entry-point, a confident capital whose raw, modern energy is complemented by rich cultural traditions, and which boasts outstanding medieval monuments and the richly varied exhibits of the National Gallery and National Museum.

South of the city, the desolate Wicklow Mountains offer a breathtaking contrast to city life. On Ireland’s southern coast, Cork’s shoreline is punctuated by secluded estuaries, rolling headlands and historic harbours, while Cork city itself is the region’s hub, with a vibrant cultural scene.
Stunning early Christian monuments abound, too, including the Rock of Cashel and atmospheric sites at Clonmacnoise, Glendalough and Monasterboice.

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